"Zwingli memorized in Greek all of the Pauline Epistles, having copied them down word for word. This spadework would later bear fruit in Zwingli’s powerful expository preaching and biblical
exegesis.
On this date [January 1, 1519] the new pastor shocked his congregation by announcing his intention to dispense with the traditional lectionary. Instead of “canned” sermons, Zwingli would preach straight through the Gospel of Matthew , beginning with the genealogy in chapter 1, and so on until by 1525 he had worked his way through the New Testament and then turned to the Old.
Two events mark his break with Rome and his public adherence to the Protestant cause.
*In late 1520 he renounced the papal pension he had been receiving for several years.
*Two years later, on October 10, 1522 , he resigned his office as “people’s priest” of Zurich, whereupon the city council promptly hired him as preacher to the entire city.
Zurich lay within the jurisdiction of the bishop of Constance, who regarded Zwingli’s strident preaching with growing alarm.
---The fear of schism was on his mind when he warned the Zurichers to maintain “the unity of the Church, without which there can be no Gospel; Christ is one, and the Church is one.”
---To this admonition Zwingli replied with his Apologeticus Archeteles (“ my first and last defense”). At points he sounded almost flippant.
*Is he accused of not listening to the bishops? “Nothing is easier, since they say nothing.”
*As for the charge of abandoning Holy Mother Church, he called on his opponents themselves “to leave the asses and come over to the oxen, abandon the goats for the sheep.”
The sacraments were chiefly those signs by which the believer proved to the church that he was a soldier of Christ; their purpose was “to inform the whole church rather than yourself of your faith.”
DGO
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Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Matthew 10:34
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On this date [January 1, 1519] the new pastor shocked his congregation by announcing his intention to dispense with the traditional lectionary. Instead of “canned” sermons, Zwingli would preach straight through the Gospel of Matthew , beginning with the genealogy in chapter 1, and so on until by 1525 he had worked his way through the New Testament and then turned to the Old.
Two events mark his break with Rome and his public adherence to the Protestant cause.
*In late 1520 he renounced the papal pension he had been receiving for several years.
*Two years later, on October 10, 1522 , he resigned his office as “people’s priest” of Zurich, whereupon the city council promptly hired him as preacher to the entire city.
Zurich lay within the jurisdiction of the bishop of Constance, who regarded Zwingli’s strident preaching with growing alarm.
---The fear of schism was on his mind when he warned the Zurichers to maintain “the unity of the Church, without which there can be no Gospel; Christ is one, and the Church is one.”
---To this admonition Zwingli replied with his Apologeticus Archeteles (“ my first and last defense”). At points he sounded almost flippant.
*Is he accused of not listening to the bishops? “Nothing is easier, since they say nothing.”
*As for the charge of abandoning Holy Mother Church, he called on his opponents themselves “to leave the asses and come over to the oxen, abandon the goats for the sheep.”
The sacraments were chiefly those signs by which the believer proved to the church that he was a soldier of Christ; their purpose was “to inform the whole church rather than yourself of your faith.”
DGO